Study: Republicans more persuasive than scientists on 'climate change'

From the UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT and the “that’s going to leave a mark” department comes this bit of news that’s sure to cause some heads to explode.

Regardless of political affiliation, people are more likely to believe facts about climate change when they come from Republicans speaking against what has become a partisan interest in this country, says a new University of Connecticut study.

In fact, Republicans are even more persuasive than scientists when it comes to correcting misinformation about climate change, researchers found.

“Unfortunately, correcting misinformation is much harder than simply providing ‘facts’,” says Lyle Scruggs, professor of political science at UConn, who co-authored the paper with Salil Benegal, a recent UConn Ph.D. graduate, now at DePauw University. The study is published in Climatic Change.

The study included 1,341 people, data collected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and focused on a specific partisan issue on which scientific consensus has been widely adopted by Democrats but challenged by Republicans. Participants included those who self-identified as Republicans, Democrats, or Independents.

As expected, study authors found a partisan gap between Democrats and Republicans in their stated opinions on climate change, with Democrats expressing the highest level of concern and scientific agreement. The partisan gap diminished, however, with corrective information.

In the study, misinformation was corrected by factual information from different sources stating the presence of broad scientific consensus that climate change is happening and attributable to human activity.

All participants, regardless of partisanship, received factual corrections after reading a statement denying climate change. The corrections were randomly attributed to Republicans, Democrats, or non-partisan climate scientists.

Overall, participants found the most effective corrections came from Republicans rather than non-partisan scientists or Democrats. This transcended partisan leanings, researchers found.

“This may be because Republicans who make such statements are engaging in more potentially costly behavior that lend them additional persuasive value,” the authors say.

Republican political identity is now perhaps associated with climate change denial. As such, Republicans engaging in pro-climate change discourse is more “surprising” to all citizens, the authors say.

The researchers examined the issue in an attempt to determine which sources of information are the most effective in persuading individuals to reject misinformation on the topic of climate change.

The findings have implications for environmental communication strategies that seek to improve awareness about climate change.

“Citing Republican elites who endorse the scientific consensus on climate change may be the most effective way to persuade citizens that climate change is a real and important problem,” says Scruggs. “That may be a step forward in reducing the partisan gap in public opinion on the subject.”

Correcting misinformation about climate change: the impact of partisanship in an experimental setting

Abstract

Misperceptions of the scientific consensus on climate change are an important problem in environmental policy. These misperceptions stem from a combination of ideological polarization and statements from prominent politicians who endorse information contradicting or misrepresenting the scientific consensus on climate change. Our study tests a source credibility theory of correction using different partisan sources of information in a survey experiment. We find that corrections from Republicans speaking against their partisan interest are most likely to persuade respondents to acknowledge and agree with the scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change. The extent of these effects vary by the partisanship of the recipient. Our results suggest that the partisan gap on climate change can be reduced by highlighting the views of elite Republicans who acknowledge the scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change.

I take it as simple confirmation of what I think even the most resistant to the idea have had to accept – this is no longer a scientific issue, in fact it probably was never an actual “scientific” issue. This is a political issue, dressed up by the left in pseudo-scientific terms in order to mask their desire to use it to seize political power.
Since it is now purely a political issue, it makes sense that dealing with in on a political basis will be most effective. Voters don’t care about scientific debates; they never did. But from experience most of them have a strong sense that when one party is screaming “Fire and Eternal Damnation for you all, unless you pay up!” then they had better grab hold of their pocketbooks tightly.

Control and capital. There are trillions of dollars in redistributive change at stake. A prophecy of catastrophic anthropogenic global cooling/warming/climate change is enough to put the fear of mortal gods in many men, women, and children.

….Or you trust people more that have something to lose or are impartial vs. something to gain (research grants / CO2 tax revenues / more control and power). As well when the same ‘democrats’ are still flying the world between their seven different mansions, hotels and tax funded dinners. Does it really take a study or a genius to realize there is a credibility issue at play here?

“Republicans tell fewer lies.”
Republicans only lie when they promise they will do something (they most don’t and sometimes do the exact opposite). Dems lie about pretty much everything. Their program is a lie in itself: how can you promise higher minimum salary AND more immigration to fill in the low qualification jobs that no American would do because of the ridiculously low pay?

It’s too bad people are not more willing
to trust their own senses, and celebrate
the wonderful climate in recent years,
except for this cold winter,
and the greening of our planet,
from more CO2 in the air.
When it comes to climate change,
there is 1% science (simple lab experiments)
and 99% wild guesses, speculation,
unproven theories, and much BS,
with haphazard / biased data collection,
to compile an average global surface temperature
which is meaningless, because it doesn’t even
match weather satellite and weather balloon data.
Maybe it’s + 1 degree warmer than in 1880,
+/- at least 1 degree C. margin of error.
So what ?
If any of the warming was caused by CO2,
then it’s night time warming in the colder,
drier latitudes — and the few people living there
are thrilled with the change !
Only $#@&% leftists like you, Silber,
(based on many of your comments here),
would promote climate scaremongering
for political (Democrat Party)
and financial gain (govt. bureaucrat
“scientists” get job security)
Only a person with a limited ability
to think for themselves would take
climate change scaremongering
seriously, and believe the smarmy leftists
after over 30 years of their grossly inaccurate
average temperature predictions,
from the expensive computer games.
And just be thankful
I was in a good mood today !
My climate blog —
leftists and other climate change parrots
must stay away:http://www.elOnionBloggle.Blogspot.com

That is what the researchers conclude, but that is not necessarily the reason the respondents formed the opinion. Studies do not always ask the subjects why they formed an opinion or acted in a certain way, because that makes it harder for the researchers to code things in their preferred/planned/intended categories. Even if subjects are asked, their responses may not be disclosed or used in the study, or they may be stuck in the “closest” category. Qualitative data is easy to spin.
I suspect that people tend to be less suspicious when someone expresses an opinion/idea/belief that seems to contradict the “usual” or “approved” opinion of “their group”, be it race, political party, sex, college major, profession, etc. That does not mean that people are actually going to accept an idea simply because the person is going against the grain.

Richard Greene,
“Only $#@&% leftists like you, Silber,
(based on many of your comments here),
would promote climate scaremongering
for political (Democrat Party)
and financial gain (govt. bureaucrat
“scientists” get job security)
Only a person with a limited ability
to think for themselves would take
climate change scaremongering
seriously, and believe the smarmy leftists
after over 30 years of their grossly inaccurate
average temperature predictions,
from the expensive computer games.”
It’s too bad the skeptic movement has been poisoned by rhetoric like this. It is this prevalent attitude that detracts from the credibility of the scientific argument.
(The “movement” is not cohesive, I know, but it has a common denominator: policy.)
You are so completely off base in your assumptions about me that I know how biased your general ideas are. It makes your attack on me completely absurd and harmless. Perhaps you’ll take these things into account next time you want to hurt, and you’ll do a better job.
Sickening to see you have a site of your own. I can only imagine the lies it spreads.
BTW, being on the left does not make one a leftist. Different connotations, you see. Or do you? Usually the term “leftist” is associated with communism or at least socialism.
I’m sick to death of smug little slimeballs like you with your foolish assumptions. I’m a person, get it? I’m complex. I can think for myself. I don’t think it’s sensible or ethical to do nothing about climate change, but that’s not my main concern. People like you are waging war on science, and that is not good for the country. I care about America. There is something terribly wrong when people think their scientific community is corrupt, a tool of government, and that it is so back-asswards that laymen can do better.
It is this I am fighting. It is you I am fighting, Richard Greene.

@Kristi Silber
You are not “defending science” by making appeals to authority or implying that only a credentialed guild of experts is capable of analyzing data to test a theory. On the contrary, that’s how you demonstrate that you are defending a political agenda or a faith-based proposition. Consensus is not science, it is politics. “Settled science” sounds like religious dogma to me. Scientists do not need to appeal to their authority, they appeal to the data. If 99.9% say the earth is flat, the 0.1% who deny that dogma are no less right even if they are far “out of the mainstream”. Scientists do not alter the data to fit the preconceived theory. If the data disprove a theory, they are skeptical of the theory and they alter the theory to fit the data. They are not emotionally invested in the old theory. They should not be financially interested in a particular outcome. It shouldn’t be a consideration that certain politicians won’t like the new theory that fits the data.
Every day on this site, evidence is presented to argue for or against falsifiable theories. That is what the scientific method looks like in action. That is how science is being defended here. It seems to me that you provoke the sort of regrettable attacks that you sustain here from time to time. You ought to be more appreciative of the leeway that the moderators grant to you for your trollery.

On many issues, a layman, or a child, can do better than the “scientific consensus” (that never was).
One issue is the risk of low dose radiation. Another is the need for various vaccines. A child could see that the CDC is full of it, and needs to be dismantled.
Many things should be obvious to a moderately intelligent 11 years old. That “Science” is a massive failure (not self cleaning) is one.

Elite Republican? Are we talking Maverick here? I thank John McCain for his service but the guy was the goat at the Navy School for Boys and has never exhibited elevated intellectual capacity. Other Elite Republicas in favor of AGW? Who cares, it’s Reality that matters. The AGW crowd still has not detected any signal exceeding the normal noise, ie, there is no measured variance exceeding the variance shown in the Geologic Record. Sea Level is useful to show glacial and inter-glacial epochs, so when the sea level is at least 50 meters higher or 100 meters lower we can talk. Otherwise it’s just noise.

Anthony Watts, “that’s going to leave a mark”, really on who? Are you just doing the bait and switch? You got me to read the article but the title is misleading. “Republicans more persuasive than scientists”, yeah when they AGREE WITH CLIMATE ALARMISTS”:
The mark is on me after reading this load of crap.

…In the study, misinformation was corrected by factual information from different sources stating the presence of broad scientific consensus that climate change is happening and attributable to human activity….
“…In the study, information was undermined by propaganda from different sources stating the presence of broad scientific consensus that climate change is happening and attributable to human activity….”
There. Fixed that for you…

More importantly, the “corrective” information didn’t really correct or contradict the starting statement. For example, in the first example question they have, the starting statement was one by Inhofe, and asserted that there was no real scientific proof that CO2 would cause the catastrophic harms hypothesized, and that the Earth was then in a cooling period. None of the following three corrective statements contradicted either of these assertions. They only indicated that scientists had opinions and estimates that CO2 caused most of the warming seen since 1950, that up to 4C temperature increase was forecast, etc. IN other words, the “corrective” information was a combination of the appeal to authority and straw man fallacies.
This kind of study says as much or more about the sloppy thinking of the researchers than it does about the participants of the study.

“This kind of study says as much or more about the sloppy thinking of the researchers than it does about the participants of the study.”
Nope, you aren’t getting the point. It’s about the effect of who made the statement. The researchers may even have made the issue/response intentionally illogical, since often replies don’t actually address the subject.
How easy it is for people to dismiss science for the wrong reasons. That’s what wrong with this whole site; it nurtures the drive to mindlessly distrust. It is not skepticism, it’s doubt and ridicule and assumption….and politics.

Yeah – as in, the very idea of a “broad consensus” being anything “scientific” is a joke to begin with, and the fact that they keep harping on their 97% BS (and it IS BS, 2/3 didn’t even take a “side”) just tells you that this IS NOT about SCIENCE at all.
“Consensus” is a creature of politics, NOT science. The fact that they keep talking about “consensus” tells you that AGW is all politics, all the time. “Science” my a$$.

I think what they claimed they found was that the argument against a skeptical view was more persuasive when made by a Republican. They did not claim to find that Republicans making skeptical arguments were more persuasive.

This.
By my reading, the ‘corrections’ were the same in each case and in favor of the Warmist dogma, the study simply changed the names of those presenting the arguments.
People are more likely to believe an argument from a person who is arguing against his own self-interest. One doesn’t need a study to confirm this.

“All participants, regardless of partisanship, received factual corrections propaganda after reading a statement denying climate change. The corrections were propaganda was randomly attributed to Republicans, Democrats, or non-partisan climate scientists.”
There, now that statement is factual. Words and meanings, they matter.

Lab coats? The only people that wear lab coats these days are actors in TV commercials, green activists at protests, and the occasional student TA sweeping the floor. A lab coat is not required to fudge statistics or read the printouts from climate models. I seriously doubt that Mann has EVER worn one, unless it was for a photo op.

Pathetic – “factual information from different sources stating the presence of broad scientific consensus that climate change is happening and attributable to human activity.”
Because these clowns didn’t bother to check their facts, they were presenting lies to their subjects. That makes the entire study worthless.

Worthless can go below zero. This study does show something, however. Democrats’ credibility is lower than Republicans. If the study’s authors would pull their heads out of The Bubble, they’d see this.

The tipping point was always when it no longer mattered that “the science” was full of holes and didn’t stand up to the rigor of the scientific method. This study highlights how it was to be achieved and is instructions to useful idiots/greedy bastards.
“You should be embarrassed for not believing when all these great minds have done the thinking for you” is not a bad thing until its hijacked by BS artists.

Its not that we trust Republicans all that much, its that we’ve learned through hard experience not to trust partisan pronouncements from our universities anymore. Sad state of affairs all the way round.

David, this is misleading. You wouldn’t count the “no position” papers with the other percentages if you are trying to get an estimate of agreement. That’s like including all the people who didn’t vote as ballots for one candidate.
The authors combines the red orange and yellow. Most papers would have no need of quantifying the warming attributable to humans. It is worth adding that this is not an estimate of how many scientists are CAGW, but how many think AGW is likely.
I don’t like this study, or how it was framed by they media. 97% of papers doesn’t not mean 97% of scientists. The “97.5%” is stupid – it’s not so precise, and not set in stone. The whole idea has been overblown. That doesn’t mean, though, that in essence it’s incorrect; the vast majority of scientists support AGW theory. Just ask one of the poor rebels whose life have been destroyed by speaking out against the mob.

Silber:
I’m the most skeptical climate change skeptic
you’ll ever (not) meet … yet even I believe some
of the warming since 1880 is caused by humans:
Urban heat island effect.
Al “blabbermouth” Gore’s hot air.
“Adjustments” to raw temperature data,
Warming biased “infilling” of more than
50% of the grids in the global surface average
Bias by people who compile the surface data,
who do not care that satellite and balloon data
are different than surface data,
but do correlate with each other.
Dark soot from burning coal and wood
deposited on ice and snow
in the Arctic, increasing albedo
Maybe some nighttime warming from CO2 too.
I’d be shocked if anyone though humans had
absolutely no effect on the climate …
… but science does not progress by a vote —
the history of science is one “consensus”
after another being thrown in the dust bin
of history, replaced by better science.

Ms Silber,
Let’s be careful – the study was of papers written by climate scientists who have been publishing in the peer-reviewed climate science literature.
The population of authors of the 11,000+ papers reviewed hardly constitute all scientists. It is likely that universities in the PRC graduate more scientists per year than the total number of authors of the 11,000+ papers. Plus, there are all the other scientists in the world, whose beleifs weren’t reviewed in Cook, et al.
So, when talking about the 97% of Cook, et all, let’s make sure that it is “97% of climate scientists who have been publishing in the peer-reviewed climate science literature”. That is a much smaller group of people than “scientists.”

Kristi, the whole “study” is misleading and was cynically used to create another meaningless meme. The simple fact is consensus is not how real science is done. the fact that they keep talking about “consensus” tells you that they’re not talking about science.
And I agree with Richard Greene 100% (except I think he meant DEcreasing albedo).

Greene,
I am not at all interested in anything you have to say.
Retired Engineer Jim,
The point was to assess those scientists who know about climate science, not all scientists. Expertise should matter in an assessment like this. The consensus is within the climate scientist community. I know the message has gotten warped by the media, and I hold the researchers partly accountable for it. They wanted to do something that would convince, that would put the issue in the spotlight. This was dumb, and it backfired. The data aren’t bad, but they doesn’t say what the media propagated. The researchers weren’t climate scientists, were they? Can’t remember. Poor science.
There are several reason to complain about this paper and its methods, but the cutoff at published papers about climate science was not one of them, IMO. The problem came when it wasn’t made clear that’s what’s being measured.

“the climate scientist community”, I guess, is those paid to study the problem of man made warming?
Do you trust the “consensus” of the “medical community” (aka drug dealers) on the effects of drugs? Or the need to use drugs?

From the article: “Citing Republican elites who endorse the scientific consensus on climate change may be the most effective way to persuade citizens that climate change is a real and important problem,” says Scruggs.”
No, that will just get the Republican Elites ridiculed by other Republicans. Maybe the scientists haven’t noticed that Republican Elites are associated with The Swamp in most Republican’s minds. In other words, the Republican Elites are not held in high regard by the Deplorables.
This study is just another example of how the Alarmists are losing the battle for the hearts and minds. And they know it. That’s why they do these kinds of exercises.
Winning!

These idiots will never convince me of any human-induced climate catastrophe via CO2 emissions, even if they got Ronald Reagan to come back from the dead to tell me about how “misinformed” [THEY think] I am. They have NO empirical evidence to back up their claims, NONE. Produce THAT, or STFU.

The way I see it, despite the best efforts of the AGW proponents to cast all rejection of their theories as being sponsored by Big Oil, it’s become obvious to the general public that the people who are claiming that there is an imminent climate crisis are those who stand to make money from increased funding to study climate. The climate alarmists are coming across as salesmen, not scientists. It’s like listening to a salesman at an electronics store trying to warn you of the dangers of not buying the extended warranty package. Since you know he’s looking to increase his commission, it’s easy to ignore him.

oh that reminded me of the reports of how when ohbummer was supposed to have made some law /tax thing..everyone loved it.
when they were told it was from trump they hated it
and it was a trump idea i gather;-)
same thing
lie/mislead and see the sheepies amblealong

This study is actually reporting that the established consensus and the Democrats have no credibility left on climate change, and that claiming the report is endorsed by a Republican makes the assertion more credible. Much more a statement of how little credibility the green blob still has.

Politicians have no credibility on any subject.
Just like used car salesmen.
Unfortunately, thanks to government
bureaucrat “climate scientists”
playing computer games and making
wrong climate forecasts for decades,
I’d never buy a used car from a scientist !

Um…
What a confusing study. For a start, what does this quite from the methodology mean?…In an effort to rely on actual quotes from real politicians, the details of corrective messages differed in this pilot study. This sacrificed some degree of internal validity for external validity, as the intensity and phrasing of messages differed by group. …
Secondly, the main finding is that Republicans change more than Democrats. Unsurprising. Democrats are 100% behind AGW under all circumstances, so ANY change can only be on the part of a group who are thinking a bit.
Finally, the questions include the hoary old “Do believe in climate change?” To which the answer depends crucially on how you interpret that phrase….

So here is a study that, at its foundation, is based on the already disproved “scientific consensus”. It then slides into sociology in attempting to determine the effectiveness of the climate change message. I think we have seen a number of these studies and assessments recently. AGW proponents continue to believe that changing the message delivery will win the day for them, even when the facts are not on their side. I seem to recall from history that this approach is called “propaganda”.
I hope taxpayer dollars were not spent on this “study”, but I suspect otherwise.

The authors of the “study” don’t seem capable of believing that the CAGW credibility problem is the credibility problem they somehow have to overcome before their barrels of bullwash will be ‘believed in.’
Doesn’t it have to be believable before it can be ‘believed in?’ If it makes no sense then it just may be thought to be nonsense, don’t ya know?

Over 20 years ago, when the global warming issue first started leaking into the mainstream hive-mind, I knew immediately that it was probably a sham. The first red flag was that the hard sell was coming from a lifelong politician (Al Gore). The second red flag was the blatant lie that the ‘science is settled.’ Anyone that knows anything about science knows that there’s no such animal as ‘settled science’. The one thing that I didn’t realize at the time was how long this foolishness would survive. The reason that it has is not because of any observational evidence (there’s not a shred), but that there’s a huge multifaceted propaganda machine at work on this planet. This machine never sleeps and never relents and it’s very, very effective.

Democrats destroy everything they touch:
Sports (Football and other sports they’ve infiltrated are a mess!)
Immigration (it’s designed to leave a permanent poor class that votes Democrat!)
Education (Venezeula’s socialism is touted as a success!)
Government (Comey and Brennan, Leaders of the Coup)
Health Care (The Affordable Care Act that was anything but affordable and caring!)
News (Democrats invented Fake News and are awash in it!)
Entertainment (Hollywood destroys our social fabric even as such movies lose money!)
And the list goes on…
Show me just one thing where Democrats have made an improvement. The reason is that they don’t deal in the truth; they deal in lies, distortions, and subterfuge. They are the largest criminal organization in the United States.

Democracy, in the hands of Democrats, has become soft communism. Communism, hard or soft, must have institutionalized slavery if it is to exist and persist. (Do an Internet search on “Death of Democracy” if you have time for some interesting reading in the form of essays from some bright people.)

Democracy in anyone’s hands is going to be a handful of manure, communist or otherwise. At least in the United States, people don’t elect (democratically) politicians to a democratic government to steward democracy. They elect politicians to a republican form of government to reign in the people’s proclivity to vote away their rights. The proper carrot and too many people would vote away autonomy. The republic was created to restrain that urge.

Richard,
Roughly 600 votes in Florida made the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan “Republican Wars” and not “Democrat Wars”. Al Gore, the Clintons and a majority of Democrats in Washington supported both wars, until they didn’t. It’s just that media lets Democrats forget their bad past decisions, where Republicans are “hypocrites” until they start parroting bad Democrat ideas that have never worked in the real world. Then they are “enlightened”.
It’s more of a Washington swamp critter thing than a “Republican” or “Democrat” thing

Rather than non-partisan scientists , well rules out climate ‘scientists’ whose livelihood and profession makes them very partisan. For although AGW has not delivered on the climate front its certainly has delivered on the ‘easy life and money for old rope ‘ front .

Perhaps it is because the dribble published by the AGW group their minions and the MSM sound like the preachers of the various cults that end up committing a mass cult suicide. How many/ deadlines have we passed and – nothing? How many calamities have been predicted and not happened? How many mistakes have been discovered and then dismissed as not important. Why are they increasingly recognizing the influence of the Sun and the various phases after vociferously claiming that the “Sun is constant” and has no effect on the changes? The effect of the Sun Spots are like a gnat flying in front of a spotlight.

Connecticut residents are more interested in UCONN sports programs than its educational efforts 10 to 1. A sad but true fact. Conn and national education is tied 100% to political correctness. It has become the core of their educational efforts. Indoctrination 1st and foremost, education takes a back seat if at all.

Hey, I know what they should do: persuade some True Believers to pose as Republicans! No way would Republicans see through that ruse, as they tend to be rather dense, and easy to fool. Then, since it would be a “Republican” doing the climate-‘splaining, why, they would see the light and switch sides. Problem solved, easy-peasy, piece of cake! Why didn’t they think of this before? It’s a no-brainer.

In the study, misinformation was corrected by factual information from different sources stating the presence of broad scientific consensus that climate change is happening and attributable to human activity.

I’d like to see examples of misinformation used in the study, subsequently corrected by factual information from whatever source. Could you provide some?

Look up the link and read the paper, or at least teh abstract.
One of the questions is ‘Do you believe in climate change?’ – with an IPCC quote saying that 97% of scientists agree that it’s happening (whatever this means), and then a Republican politician saying that he believes that the weather is changing ….

We have seen several studies about how to message, aka propagandize CAGW. Remember the Obama Administration use to say that they “just hadn’t message appropriately or enough” when Americans rejected their policies. This was in spite of the fact that Obama and other members of his administration, as well as the mainstream media, had blasted the country for days, weeks and months about the policies. Studies like this one are another attempt to find the “secret key” to selling the CAGW orthodoxy. They believe the the whole issue is not that AGW hypothesis is wrong but that they just are not using the right words from the right persons, etc. When anyone starts talking to me about AGW I listen until they get to “overwhelming scientific consensus” at which point if I am in a good mood I just walk away. If I am not in a good mood they get a lecture about the history of Scientific Method and how it has held us in good stead for a couple of centuries and “scientific consensus” is basically an oxymoron.

I’m underwhelmed that pseudo-Republicans arguing for CAGW are more “persuasive” than climate “scientists”. The chances of my wife or I being polled is exactly zero. We screen our calls, and never answer calls from those we cannot identify- therefore we’ll never be polled. I suspect that the intelligence of those polled is, on the average, lower than the average intelligence of those never polled.

It costs $40 bucks to read the paper, which is wasteful. No mention of number of subjects, degrees of difference, possible error ranges etc. Typical psycho-social research. Unless they used an ungodly number of subjects any results are meaningless- part of the 90% of research that cannot be duplicated. Psycho-social stuff calls a correlation of .5 good, and anything over .6 virtually certain. In engineering it’s over 99% and particle physics they use .999999999 for significance.
IAT- It’s All Trash.

Democrats & media are condescending. Using phrases like, “the debate is over, the facts are in, the evidence is clear”, is another way of saying, “shut up, we know better than you”. Furthermore, even to speak up quickly turns into “you support the racist, Nazi, Putin-loving, pussy-grabber”…who may soon deserve a Nobel Peace Prize.

The Hockey Stick chart in this picture is one of the bigger lies told in the Alarmist’s efforts to promote CAGW. 1934 was the hottest year in recent memory. Hotter than 1998 and hotter than 2016, but you wouldn’t know that looking at the lying Hockey Stick chart (which is the purpose of the lie). A truthful chart would show 1934 as being hotter than any subsequent year. It would not show a trendline going straight up like this lying Hockey Stick chart does.https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/scimarch-debateover-chalkboard.jpg

Here’s the Hansen 1999 chart. Note how its temperature profile looks nothing like the Hockey Stick chart with 1934 being the hottest point. The Hockey Stick chart is scary, and it is meant to be. The Hansen chart is not scary, so they had to change it into a Hockey Stick.https://climateaudit.files.wordpress.com/2007/02/uhcnh2.gif

If CO2 were really the driver of our climate then it should be an H of a lot hotter then it is now. Scientists have never registered and voted on the AGW conjecture so “97% of Scientists Agree” is false. From examination of the paleoclimate record and the work done with models, one can conclude that the climate change we are experiencing today is caused by the sun and the oceans over which mankind has not control. There is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate and plenty of scientific rational the the climate sensitivity of CO2 is really zero. The AGW conjecture is based on only partial science and cannot be defended. The AGW conjecture is based on the existence of a radiant greenhouse effect caused by trace gases in the Earth’s atmosphere with LWIR absorption bands. Such a radiant greenhouse effect has not been observed in a real greenhouse, on Earth, or anywhere else in the solar system. The radiant greenhouse effect is science fiction hence the AGW conjecture is science fiction. It is all a matter of science.
The white coats must be some sort of Halloween costume.

When they say: “correcting misinformation“, they mean promoting climate alarmism.
After years of demonizing, even moderate, Republicans as Nazis, lefty climate activists now need to recruit some Republicans as fellow alarmists. So they can convert the other Republicans over to the climate catastrophe cause. Not going to happen.

It’s probably wishful thinking to believe that people are more persuaded by a Republican armed with real facts (backed up by data) than by Democrats, who “massage” their data to present their opinion as fact.
How long have we skeptics been pointing to factual data to debunk all the hype and worry about “global warming” while the alarmists fudge the data and “hide the decline” in order to feed their propaganda machine?
Weren’t we told 30 years ago that the next generation of children would never see snow? What’s all that cold white stuff people have been shoveling this winter and a month into spring? Maybe THAT is more persuasive than somebody’s computer model about a future disaster that never seems to happen…

Sadly, no. Read the article more carefully, or maybe don’t bother. Let me summarize.
The study presented true facts to various survey subjects, then they told politically-correct lies disputing the true facts and randomly attributed the lies to one of three groups. They asked if the subject found the lie believable and then measured whether lies attributed to Republicans, Democrats or Scientists were believed more frequently.
For example:
Fact; “CO2 concentration does not cause warming, in the geologic record, warming causes CO2 concentration to rise. Today, due to fossil fuel burning, it is possible for CO2 concentration to rise above an equilibrium level, but this is not appreciably impacting temperature, despite a slight greenhouse gas effect”,
Lie: “97% of scientists agree that high CO2 concentration is causing temperatures to rise catastrophically”.
Then the researchers randomly attributed the lie to a Republican, a Democrat, or a non-partisan scientist.
Then the researchers asked the subject if they believe the “correction” (lie).
Then the researchers found that when the lies were attributed to Republicans they were believed more often than if the lies were attributed to either of the other groups.
Their explanation of the study was that if a Republican supports the CAGW religion, going against the evil-evil-evil Republican meme, then they are believable because for a vile Republican to abandon their fossil fuel oligarch sponsors, is dangerous to their political careers.
Hope that helps

If a Democrat ever comes out and says that CAGW is a hoax, now that would be a credible source!
You can be sure that the MSM Inquisition would burn them at the stake for that apostasy from the one true Faith.

Sigh. Republicans backed by energy companies – i.e. ‘Big Energy’ – heavily invested in renewables.
They are perceived as ‘more trustworthy’ simply BASED on perceived partisanship – the idea being that their side of the aisle is an opponent of the issue.
Perhaps in lip service (to constituents who are promptly ignored once elections are over) but certainly not if you pay attention to what almost anyone in congress is doing.

Did they do any corrections that disagreed with consensus, coming from Republicans, Democrats, Independents? Or do these researchers just assume that one viewpoint is correct?
“This may be because Republicans who make such statements are engaging in more potentially costly behavior that lend them additional persuasive value,” the authors say.
This is obvious. It’s why using the IPCC to argue against climate alarmists is so effective. Chevron just won a big case doing that.

There’s a simple explanation for why proponents of CAGW, “scientists” in particular, are having difficulty convincing folks: They have no evidence. All the evidence is against them.
The proponents of anthropogenic-caused global warming (hereinafter referred to as “alarmists”) invariably, and ironically, DENY that the Medieval Warming Period (MWP, 1,000 years ago) was global and likely warmer than it is now. These folks acknowledge only that Europe experienced the MWP. They likely take this unjustifiable position because their computer models cannot explain a global, warmer MWP. Why? Because their models require on increasing co2 level, plus depend even more on the built-in ASSUMPTION that water vapor feedback, the actual culprit, causes 2 to 3 times the temperature increase brought on by the corresponding increase in co2. However, co2 did not begin increasing until the 1800s, long after the MWP.
With no co2 increase there is obviously also no further temperature increase provided by water vapor feedback. The MWP global temperature increase must have been nothing more than natural climate variation. It therefore becomes plausible that our current warming (such as it is) may also be due to NATURAL climate variation. But that, of course, conflicts with the UN’s IPCC (and other alarmists’) claim that our current warming is mostly due to the human-caused increase in co2. The issue of climate influence on polar bear population can be dismissed because polar bears were around long before the MWP and survived that warmer era.
A brief meta-analysis follows to demonstrate that the MWP was indeed global and at least as warm as it is now.
First, the MWP trend is conclusively shown to be global by borehole temperature data. The 6,000 boreholes are scattered around the globe, and not constrained to just those locals where ice core data was used. A great discussion of the borehole data can be found at Joanne Nova’s website.
Next, the receding Mendenhall glacier (Alaska) recently exposed a 1,000 year-old shattered forest, still in its original position. No trees (let alone a forest) have grown at that latitude anywhere near that site since the MWP. It was obviously warmer in that part of Alaska than it is now. Alaska is quite distant from Europe.
Finally, there have been hundreds of peer-reviewed MWP studies, and the earlier results (showing a global, warmer MWP) were reflected in earlier IPCC reports. These studies were carried out around the globe by investigators and organizations representing numerous countries. It’s curious that Mann and his cohort did not give more consideration to those study results before presenting their conflicting “hockey stick” claim. One of their own players, Phil Jones, admitted publicly that if the MWP was global and as warm as now then it was a different “ballgame”. It’s worth noting that studies continue to regularly show up confirming that the MWP was warmer than now.
Focus on the subset of the MWP studies which directly address temperature estimates. The Greenland Temperature (gisp2) study, for example, shows, among other things, that Greenland was warmer during the MWP than it is now. Greenland is distant from both Europe and Alaska.
These numerous MWP studies have been cataloged at the co2science.org website. Dr. Idso, the proprietor of that website, is a known skeptic. However, the studies were independently performed by numerous researchers using various temperature proxy techniques and representing many different countries. The studies also span several decades.
Interested readers should satisfy themselves by going to co2science.org and choosing (say) a half dozen regions (all should be remote from Alaska, Greenland, and Europe). Choose at least one temperature study from each selected region. You will find that each of the selected sites were warmer during the MWP than now. These study results are consistent with the temperature trend provided by borehole data.
There is also other confirming observations which include antique vineyards found at latitudes where grapes cannot be grown today, old burial sites found below the perma-frost, and Viking maps of most of Greenland’s coastline.
This meta-analysis is comprised of straight-forward non-controversial studies. The MWP studies as well as various other data and are all consistent with the borehole data results. This meta-study does NOT involve the use of controversial “models”, or dubious statistical machinations.
One of the “talking points” posed by alarmists, to “rebut” the claim of a global, warmer MWP is that warming in all regions during the MWP must be synchronous. Obviously the MWP studies sited herein were generally performed independently, so start and end dates of each study during the MWP will vary. However, anyone foolish enough to accept that “synchronous” constraint must be ready to accept that our current warming would also not qualify as a global event.
For example, many alarmists go back into the 1800s when making their claims about the total global warming temperature increase. However, that ignores a three decade GLOBAL cooling period from about 1945 to 1975. That non-synchronous period is much more significant than just a region or two being “out of synch”.
There are also other reasons to exclude consideration of temperature increases during the 1800s. There was a significant NATURAL warming beginning around 1630 (the first low temperature experienced during the LIA) and that period of increasing temperatures ran at least until 1830 (perhaps until 1850) before co2 began increasing. However, it would have taken many decades, possibly more than a century, for co2 increase following 1830, at an average 2 ppmv per year, to accrue sufficiently to have ANY impact on thermometer measurements. Neither is there any reason to expect that the 200 years of natural and significant warming beginning in 1630 ended abruptly, after 2 centuries, merely because co2 level began increasing in 1830 at a miniscule 2ppmv per year. How much, and for how long was the temperature increase after 1830 due to a continued natural climate warming?
Any current considerations about global warming must be constrained to a starting point no earlier than 1975. The global temperature began increasing in 1975 and that increase basically terminated during the 1997/98 el Nino. Even the IPCC (a bureaucracy which cannot justify its mission if current warming is NATURAL) has acknowledged another GLOBAL “hiatus” in temperature increase following 1998. NASA, in comparing recent candidate years for “hottest” was talking about differences of a few hundredths of one degree. It’s clear that the uncertainty error is likely greater than one tenth of a degree. Some argue that the error is as much as one degree.
So, all this controversy involves just two decades, and that warming has been followed by almost another two decades of no further statistically significant increase in temperature. But wait … ! It turns out that even the period from 1975 to 1998 apparently does not qualify as a global warming period because there were numerous “out of synch” regions and/or countries which have experienced no additional warming over durations which include the 1975-1998 span.http://notrickszone.com/2018/02/18/greenland-antarctica-and-dozens-of-areas-worldwide-have-not-seen-any-warming-in-60-years-and-more/#sthash.5Hq7Xqdh.JsV4juVL.dpbs
Another alarmist rebuttal attempt is that the MWP studies cataloged by co2science.org have been cherry-picked. Readers should satisfy themselves by searching for conflicting credible peer-reviewed MWP temperature studies which have not been cataloged by co2science.org. But, keep in mind that a few stray conflicting studies will not likely have much impact, because, as the previous link demonstrates, there is no shortage of regions showing no increasing warming during the supposedly 1975-1998 global warming period.
There are also other reasons to exclude consideration of temperature increases during the 1800s. There was a significant NATURAL warming beginning around 1630 (the first low temperature experienced during the LIA) and that period of increasing temperatures ran at least until 1830 (perhaps until 1850) when co2 began increasing. However, it would have taken many decades, possibly more than a century, for co2 increase following 1830, at an average 2 ppmv per year, to accrue sufficiently before having ANY impact on thermometer measurements. Neither is there any reason to expect that the 200 years of natural and significant warming beginning in 1630 ended abruptly, after 2 centuries, merely because co2 level began increasing in 1830 at a miniscule 2ppmv per year. How much of the temperature increase after 1830 was merely continued natural climate warming?

In the study, misinformation was corrected by factual information from different sources stating the presence of broad scientific consensus that climate change is happening and attributable to human activity.

What “factual information” was given to these people and what errors were they supposedly correcting? This tells me that the people in this study fell prey to the consensus argument only because a Republican restated it. Personally I don’t give a dang who states it, science doesn’t care about your consensus. That’s not how any of this works.

All participants, regardless of partisanship, received factual corrections after reading a statement denying climate change.

Why were they not measured against factual corrections after reading a statement proclaiming climate change to be catastrophic? Alarmist statements often have large amounts of factual errors. Heck, that one of the main reason for this site to exist, to call out those factual errors when an alarmist tries to put out a statement. Personally this tells me that the study was biased to begin with.

Here is the “misinformation”:
Misinformation article (shown to all treatment groups):
Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), Chairman of the Senate Environment Committee, stated in an interview last month that environmental regulations aimed at addressing climate change were “alarmist” and that the science over climate change remains unsettled.
“It’s important to question whether climate change is even a problem for human existence,” Inhofe said. “Thus far no one has seriously demonstrated any scientific proof that increased global temperatures would lead to the catastrophes predicted by alarmists. The claim that global warming is caused by man- made emissions is simply untrue and not based on sound science.”
Inhofe has made similar comments in the past, most notably during a Senate speech in 2015 when he argued that the earth is currently in a cooling period. Inhofe has been a strong critic of recent federal bills aiming to cut carbon pollution by regulating power plant emissions and oil drilling. The regulations pose a serious threat to the country’s economy, he said.
And here is the “correction,” falsely attributed either to Republicans, Scientists, or in this case Democrats:
However, several Democrats have been critical of Inhofe’s remarks on climate change. Senators Brian Schatz (D-HI) and Maria Cantwell (D-WA) pointed to recent reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that recently declared that human activities have caused most of earth’s temperature rise since 1950 and will continue to do so in the future. The IPCC, which is a non-partisan panel of scientists from over 100 countries, estimates that global temperatures may increase by as much as 4.8oC over pre-industrial levels by 2100. Democrat Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) said, “When you have over 90 percent of the world’s scientists who have studied this stating that climate change is occurring and that humans play a contributing role, it’s time to defer to the experts.”
Then you answer the survey questions:
Survey questions
Post-treatment opinion questions on climate change (names in parentheses indicate variable names in replication data.dta)
Now, please state your level of agreement with the following statements on a scale of 1-10, 10 indicating the strongest level of agreement.
Scientific consensus on climate change (Sciconsensus)
There is a general consensus among scientists that the average temperature on earth has been getting warmer over the past few decades.
1 (Strongly disagree) (1)
2 (2)
3 (3)
4 (4)
5 (5)
6 (6)
7 (7)
8 (8)
9 (9)
10 (Strongly agree) (10)
Climate change mostly anthropogenic (CChumans)
The problem of climate change is mainly due to human activity such as burning fossil fuels. 1 (Strongly disagree) (1)
2 (2)
3 (3)
4 (4)
5 (5)
6 (6)
7 (7)
8 (8)
9 (9)
10 (Strongly agree) (10)
Climate change an important problem (CCserious)
How important a problem do you think climate change is at this moment, on a scale of 1-10? 1 (Not important at all) (1)
2 (2)
3 (3)
4 (4)
5 (5)
6 (6)
7 (7)
8 (8)
9 (9)
10 (Very important) (10)
Which of the following statements best summarizes the article that you just read? (attention)
1___ Senator James Inhofe is skeptical about climate change
2___ Senator James Inhofe believes that climate change is an urgent problem
3___Senator James Inhofe is optimistic about the 2016 election
4___Senator James Inhofe wants bipartisan policy on climate change
Evidently the “correction” being attributed to the Republicans was more persuasive. Sheesh!

endorse the scientific consensus on climate change
=========
I can’t think of anything less scientific than a vote on which scientific theory is correct.
any time you need to vote in science it is proof you are on shaky ground and the science cannot be trusted.

ferdberple
That may have been true when the consensus was 97%
and the “confidence level” was 95%
I don’t know where you’ve been,
but the AGW consensus
is now 105%, with 103% confidence
— the scientists are SO CERTAIN
that even if 5% change their minds,
they are still 100% certain.
This is real climate science.
Not that complicated stuff you studied in school

“Citing Republican elites who endorse the scientific consensus on climate change may be the most effective way to persuade citizens that climate change is a real and important problem,” says Scruggs. “That may be a step forward in reducing the partisan gap in public opinion on the subject.”

I’m still wondering why, after hundreds of billions spent on Climate Change research, hasn’t anyone come up with anything concrete?
The best the American Physics Society can put forward is ‘the Greenhouse Effect is generally accepted. No proofs, no experiments, just anecdotal statements that lead to circular arguments.

All you have to do is look at the terms people use. If they say deny, denier, or belief – they are using the term of a religionist or politician. Scientists shouldn’t use those terms of they understand anything about the scientific method.

So what did Democrats say when an “elite” Dem came out against AGW. This is a biased study , making me discount it right there. And since when is the consensus make AGW credible. Science isn’t about consensus, it is about facts. The more I read, the more I see the AGW alarmists have lied and changed data. Why I am I supposed to believe these consensus scientists.

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